The art of reality

Visiting the Walking in my Mind exhibition at London’s Southbank Centre renewed for me a lot of thoughts around the act of artistic creation and the psyche.

Who is it for?
Just as they say “write what you know”, indeed art is often an interpretation of the artist’s experience. It is a very courageous thing to turn inside out what goes on in your heart and mind. Is it self-indulgent or is it a profound honesty and pure form of communication? Or is it not about the viewer at all?

Yayoi Kusama created the exhibitions iconic polka dot ’scapes. Explaining her work she states:

“My artwork is an expression of my life, particularly of my mental disease. My art originates from hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings.”

Rather than hiding her disease from the masses, she has brought her experience of it to them. She has forced them to empathise and be, like her, “a dot lost among a million other dots.” Is there comfort in this anonymity? Is it more about reminding her of her likeness to her viewers rather than highlighting to them where she differs?

What is it for?
I believe that the process of creating art forces the artist to be fully present and self-aware. By confronting what is, here and now (or rather, there and then), one can work through it. “The only way out is through ultimately” sings Alanis Morissette. A significantly therapeutic exercise, it is cathartic in the least and evolutionary at best. Through making something physical or tangible you activate the transformative energy of creation in the psychological realm. In making, you give shape to (your, which is a part of wider) reality.

It brings me back to the idea of constructive selfishness. Only when the work is made for the self, will it be meaningful to others. Only when the artist is honest with him or herself will he or she be able to project truth.

What is it?
It follows that art does not merely replicate what exists but necessarily articulates a perspective or an idea. By doing so, it gives form to the subject in a way that is, and I am making up a word here, metasensory.

What I mean by this is that, the interpretation of a piece often requires more than one sense, even though the medium may indicate otherwise. For example, we assume a painting is for looking at. However a painting also stirs the sense of touch – whether you actually run your fingers across it or not. An installation compels you to consider your physical (and possibly emotional) relationship to it as well as engage your senses of sight, sound and/or smell.

It is subjective interpretation and its metasensory manifestations that enables the artist to move the work from the space of recording to the space of remodeling; reality inspiring new realities.

“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.
— Bertolt Brecht

On Stupid weekends and winning

This weekend, The Age Of Stupid will be screened at theatres across the UK, posing a crucial question to moviegoers: “why didn’t we save ourselves?” I’m not going to delve into what the film is about because, and Mayor Ken agrees, it’s a film that should be compulsory viewing for all 6.7 billion of us! But I will ask: why aren’t we saving ourselves? Is it that we don’t believe we are worth saving?

It’s an interesting time of resonance. Earlier this week, the Affluenza exhibition opened, a project that looks at how consumer values are affecting our emotional health. Consumerism, which as suggested in The Age of Stupid, is the most successful movement in the ranks with democracy and religion. We buy this and that to look ‘better’ and feel ‘better’; we aspire to be like this and that person because they are ‘better’ and we settle for the acquisition of the trappings that constitute their lifestyle. Our consumption facilitates carbon emissions, contributing to our superficial sense of contentment and to climate change!


What if we didn’t look outside ourselves?
What if we valued ourselves enough so that we valued each other? What if by doing so we took away the power of people who play on our differences? Differences that when articulated, amplified and embellished are often the basis of conflict. Conflict that is exacerbated by climate change with devastating results.

Take our beautiful continent Africa. Rare in that it contains all that humankind could want: oil, minerals, fertile land etc. Yet present: gross underdevelopment, famine, disease and war. There is little need for me to shout about obvious connections. The continent’s beauty derives from its diversity and yet, this same diversity is manipulated to exploit and encourage blindness, silence and complicity. Complicity on all sides, people on all sides essentially not valuing themselves and what they have and own.

What if we valued ourselves enough so that we valued the environment? What if we did not bite the earth that feeds? Surely if we valued ourselves enough, we would not want to live in an environmentally deteriorating or devastated world? What if we didn’t choose to hide behind self-satisfaction and claims that our backyards were taken care of and that it was those other places that would suffer? Ultimately, all of us, around the world, are connected through the products we buy and sell, the places we visit, the decisions we make and the actions we take and so on. Despite distance and circumstance, there are often way fewer than six degrees of separation. If we’re not feeling the negative impacts today, we are not exempt, merely asleep.

A, b, c, none of the above
All of this is irrelevant, unsubstantiated and ludicrous! Life continues as normal. We’re all going to die eventually anyway so I might as well enjoy myself as much as I can.

Shit! This is serious. I would like to do something but what can I do? Can anything I do make a difference? Probably not. I better enjoy myself as much as I can and numb the guilt feelings.

Shit. This is serious. I need to find out what I can do to make a difference so that I can really enjoy myself and feel good about doing so.

Could we be winning?
…And improve my quality of life in the process! Many complain about the breakdown of society, of family values, of ‘tradition’. Of people becoming more selfish and individualistic and losing a sense of the greater good and of community. Across history, common adversaries have united the most hostile of folk. Here is a common enemy for us to fight and in the act of doing so, possibly rebuild our fragmented societies and nations.

Indeed, what if we didn’t look outside ourselves, and instead practiced a constructive selfishness? What if we undertook every activity with a view towards truly increasing our individual wellbeing? Not a vision of wellbeing that we’d bought or been co-opted into but one that we honestly delineated for ourselves. An introspective view that would allow a clearer lens for looking out!

One of my uncles has a favourite greeting that takes the place of the rather vague and uninterested “how are you?” He asks, “Are you winning?” Interpret as you will but I see it as a great prompt to focus on a more aspirational way of looking at your life. No more numbness and “fine” – instead: drive and resolution. Ultimately: affirmation!

Tip: Affluenza exhibition begins in London

What do consumer values and emotional wellbeing have in common?
The Affluenza exhibition begins in London today (in brief).